ship operations and disembarkation following a stern landing.”
“Agreed,” Conway said, wishing Prilicla would get to the point, no matter how unpleasant it was, instead of talking all around it.
“Aft of amidships, friend Conway,” Prilicla went on, “the CRLTs should be older. The two who have just left us, judging by their emotional radiation, were even less mature than the first set.”
Conway looked at Murchison, who said defensively, “I don’t know why that should be, I’m sorry. Do the data on their home planet, if it is their home planet, suggest an answer?”
“I’m pretty sure it was their home planet,” Conway replied thoughtfully, “because there couldn’t possibly be another like it. But the data are old and sparse and predate the assembly and launching from orbit of the coilship, and we’ve been too busy since Tyre’ll brought back the information to discuss it properly.”
“We have half an hour,” Murchison observed, “before the next two CRLTs arrive.”
Many centuries before the formation of the Galactic Federation, the Eurils had ranged interstellar space, driven by a curiosity so intense and at the same time hampered by a caution so extreme that even the Cinrusskin race to which Prilicla belonged was considered brave, even foolhardy, by comparison. Physiologically they were classification MSVK — a low-gravity, tripedal, and vaguely storklike life-form, whose wings had evolved into twin sets of multidigited manipulators. They had been and still were the galaxy’s prime observers, and they were content to look and learn and record through their long-range probes and sensors without making their presence known to the large and dangerously overmuscled specimens, intelligent or otherwise, who were under study.
During their travels the Eurils had come upon a system whose single, life-bearing planet pursued a highly eccentric orbit about its primary which forced its flora and fauna to adapt to environmental conditions ranging from steaming polar jungles in summer to an apparently lifeless winter world of ice. Seeing it for the first time in its frigid, winter mode, the Eurils had been about to dismiss it as being uninhabitable until their probes showed evidence of a highly technical culture encased in the winter ice. Closer investigation revealed that the civilization was current and was awaiting the spring, like every other animal and vegetable life-form on the planet, to come out of hibernation.
It was not until the polar spring was far advanced that the members of this hibernating culture were identified as the large, loglike objects which had been lying in and around the cities under the ice.
“It is clear from this that the overall being is a group entity* which, for reasons we do not yet understand, must separate into its individual parts before hibernation can take place,” Conway went on. “Since hibernation is natural to them, the problem of artificially extending it and reversing the process for the purpose of interstellar migration was, medically speaking, relatively easy to solve.
“The following year a number of the beings were observed by the Eurils in a fully conscious state,” he continued, “going about their business in small group gestalts inside heated domes under the winter ice, which indicates that they do not go into hibernation unless or until it is forced on them. It is unnecessary, therefore, to duplicate the extremes of temperature of their planet of origin on their new home since any world closely resembling their summer environment would suit them. Had this not been so, the near impossibility of finding another and identical planetary environment to the one they were trying to leave would have made the migration hopeless from the start. And the reasons for the CRLT life-form becoming a group entity, initially a small-group entity, are also becoming clear.” Even at the time of the Eurils’ visit the CRLTs, despite their advanced technology, were not having things all their own way. They lived on an incredibly savage world which had no clear division between its animal and vegetable predators. In order to have any chance of survival at all, the young CRLTs had to be born physically well developed and remain under the protection of the parent for as long as possible. In the CRLT’s case, parturition was delayed until the offspring was a young adult who had learned how to survive and how to aid the continued survival of its parent.
Separation took place every winter, when everything went to sleep and there was no physical threat, and the young one rejoined its parent in the spring to continue its lessons in survival. The young one, who at this stage was invariably female, reached physical maturity early and produced a child of its own. And so it went with the original adult, who had begun to change its sex to male, trailing a long tail of beings of diminishing degrees of masculinity and experience behind it as it moved up the chain of the group entity toward the head.
“The CRLT brain forms part of the central nerve core which during fusion is linked to the brains of the individuals ahead of and behind it via the interfaces at each end of the body,” Conway went on, “so that an individual segment learns not only by its own experience but from those of its predecessors farther up the line. This means that the larger the number of individuals in the group, the smarter will be its male head and forward segments. Should the head segment, who is the elder of the group and probably its decision maker, die from natural or other causes, the male next in line takes over.”
Murchison cleared her throat delicately and said, “If anyone wishes at this juncture to make a general observation regarding the superiority, physical or intellectual, of the male over the female, be advised that I shall spit in his, her, or its eye.”
Conway smiled and shook his head. He said seriously, “The male head will, naturally, fertilize a number of young female tail segments of other group entities, but there is a problem. Surely there would be serious psychological difficulties, sex-based frustrations, with so many of the intervening segments neither fully male or female and unable to—”
“There is no problem,” Murchison broke in, “if all mentation and, presumably, the pain and pleasure stimuli are shared by every individual in the group.”
“Of course, I’d forgotten that aspect,” Conway said. “But there is another. Think of the length of our survivor. If mentation and experience are shared, then this could be a very long-lived and highly intelligent group entity indeed—”
The discussion was cut short at that point by the lock cycling warning. The third pair of CRLTs had arrived, these two had been taken from the sternmost loops of the coilship where the casualties among the most senior and intelligent CRLTs had been heaviest. According to Vespasian’s tactical computer and the findings of Descartes’s specialists in e-t written languages and numerical systems, fifty-three of the CRLT hibernation cylinders — and their occupants — had been destroyed as a result of the collision, and between these two segments there had been seventeen members of the group entity who had not made it.
The other breaks in the coil were much smaller — the largest missing five segments and the rest only three or four each. Conway hoped that if the largest gap could be closed successfully, then the smaller ones should pose fewer problems.
As with the previous two CRLTs, the combination of artificial gravity and atmospheric pressure triggered the actuators which opened the cylinders and reversed the hibernation process. Conway had already sited the IV needles which would put them back to sleep again should they become disorderly, and Prilicla reported that they were reviving and their emotional radiation indicated that they were beings who were fully mature, healthy, and highly intelligent. As consciousness returned they began moving out of their cylinders and toward each other.
They touched, and jerked apart.
“What?” Conway began. But Prilicla was already answering the question.
“There are feelings of intense discomfort, friend Conway,” the empath said, trembling violently. “Also of confusion, disappointment, and rejection. There is background emotion, a combination of anxiety and curiosity, which is probably regarding their present surroundings.”
Because he could think of nothing to say, Conway moved to a position directly between the forward and rear interfaces of the two CRLTs. He did not consider the position dangerous because, if Prilicla’s emotional readings were correct, they were unlikely to come together. He began examining the two interfaces, both visually and with his x-ray scanner, and taking measurements. A few minutes later Murchison joined him, and
Prilicla dropped to hover cautiously a few meters above the area.
“Even with unaided vision you can see that the two interfaces are not compatible,” Conway said worriedly. “There are three areas which cannot be made to join without surgical intervention. But I am reluctant to start cutting without having a clearer idea of how to proceed. I wish I could obtain the consent and cooperation of the patients.”
“That might be difficult,” Colonel Okaussie said. “But I could have my men try to—”
“Lift them on tractor beams and force another contact,” Conway finished for him. “I need one more attempted joining, at least, with vision recorders catching it in close-up from the anterior, posterior, and lateral aspects. I also need Prilicla to monitor their emotional radiation closely during the attempt so that we will know
